Hear hear!
What is the reliability of Seagate? Anyone? What is the deal with them offering 5 year warranties? Who else does that? (Why were the 1 inch 50-pin scsi 4gb seagates going for almost $50 on eBay just months ago, and are now back down to a reasonable few bucks?)
I just had a Toshiba laptop drive die... just after its 1 year warranty was up... but its prob for the best, as it is replaced with a 5year warrantied Seagate (got some other Seagates, too, for the servers...)... but now I'm wondering... Ought I to do some EXTRA backing up almost 5 years from now?
Aren't these Mac's using a 32-bit Intel proc? Does Apple really intend to replace a 64-bit machine with a 32-bit one?
Aren't there G4's that outpace G5's at the same clock speed? What does this comparison really say? Will it be faster at even the Altivec/dual proc enhanced apps (like filters filters for photoshop, rendering video, etc...)
Napster WAS good for the music industry. The MPAA is making a similar mistake the music industry made, but not quite. Bootlegs SELL RECORDS. mp3s don't include the art work, the physical thing the consumer can hold and cherish (like the LP back in the day). And back then, at least, IMHO mp3s were not the quality of 16-bit CDs. IMO mp3s sound like a plate of @ss.
I really think the number of people who dled a mp3 back then, liked the artist and went out and bought the CD more than made up for the number that just horded as many mp3s as possible (more than they'd ever be able to actually listen to) just because of the excitement of doing something wrong. I considered mp3s to be about broadcast quality, not "digital quality," so why didn't the record industry go after radio stations when people used to make mix cassettes off radio back in the '80s? Because its absurd. Record sales slowed down slightly after the Napster fiasco... they lost sales... and the proof is the number of legal and free mp3's of singles available on the web... they are trying to get that "try before you buy" demographic back.
For the movie industry, its a little different. Their motivation is the principle (not the greed, as in the case of the record industry) They spend a lot of money trying to prevent piracy, and it doesn't work. Its wasted money (remember that MIT interview with the head of the MPAA, and the interviewer had written a little DVD decoder... and the MPAA just couldn't believe how easy it was to twart the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent trying to prevent such things). The problem is, their piracy prevention efforts only serve to stiffle the fair use rights of those that don't pirate in the first place.
for software, I think it is quite different. I have a friend who is a pirate (who just won't listen to reason). His crazy justification is that he can't afford the software, so he wouldn't be buying it anyway, so they are not loosing revenue. But I thought of another good point (at least in the case of professional applications, not games): if someone who can't afford pro software gets it and learns it and uses it, they might get a job somewhere that has bought the software. OR the pirate might recommend this software to a co. they work at and the developers get their money back in this form.
Personally, I have a lot of respect for developers. They are smart people, usually not complete @ssholes, and the work they do is not easy... and every year their salaries go down because of foreign labor. I miss the days when a 14 year old game developer could buy a Porche with cash... even though he couldn't drive, I think was still deserving of that sort of fast income.
point is, you don't know what you are hearing... you can say its reflections, and I'm not saying their not there...
so go ahead, sound proof a room, cover it with Sonex, and put up a bunch of dummy speakers and you will get the same effect from people who don't know which speakers are dummies and which are real
YOU CAN'T SEE SOUND. YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT COMES FROM. IT ONLY SOUNDS DIRECTIONAL BECAUSE YOU EXPECT SOUND TO BE COMING FROM THAT WHICH YOU KNOW TO BE THE SOURCE (SORRY DAMN KEY CAPS STUCK AGAIN)
This is just silly... you can't triangulate with audio because we only have 2 ears, and that is all that is needed for the perception of 3D audio
I am upset that there aren't more audio nerds and less people who have read Wittgenstein that which you do not know about, you cannot speak about
its like... can you aim a speaker at a prism, and slice the audio into its constituent frequencies? no. Audio is vibration in air... perceived by the ears. But so much depends on the PERCEPTION.
the primary one is how you pinpoint where sound is coming from - as your head moves around, your brain keeps track of what sounds get louder and softer and paints an aural picture based on that.
This is a common misconception... your brain paints an aural picture alright, but still, whether it is accurate or not is completely unverifiable. You only THINK that you know where sound is coming from... unless you actually know (because you set the system up) your brain will FOOL you into thinking that you know.
see Direction and Distance
You can try this yourself at home... Hook up your stereo speakers in the front of the room... then, set up a bunch of other "dummy" speakers... turn the music up real loud (actually coming through the stereo speakers only) and use something that is mixed well for stereo... any of the lofi bands from the early '90's that went hifi in the late '90's will do (my personal current mix favorite, Pretty Together by Sloan... I can't figure out how they mixed that so well... but Pink Floyd's The Wall, Momentary Lapse of reason will do, or Eagle's Hotel California) and sit back and gleefully watch your friends as they try to figure out where the sound is coming from! Better yet HIDE your stereo speakers behind some drapped cloth... then it gets really interesting.
Music that is mixed for stereo creates a stereo field... its so weird, it can seem louder in certain areas of the field, and it has nothing to do with proximity to the audio source... I think it has to do with the way the ear perceives different frequencies as louder or softer, even though these frequencies are the same sound pressure (we hear 4K louder, all things being equal)... or it could have to do with the brain (most of what we understand about the human brain comes from bicycle accidents... head trama... we have a long way to go)
anyway, apologies about the "troll"... honestly, I wasn't trolling... I just get so annoyed at these so called "audiophiles" that are more in love with technology than they are with good audio... but I stick by my guns... anything more than stereo is a dickpull, extra speakers are superfluous
there are a lot of audio engineers out there that swear by Surround... but they have good economic reason to do so. Any audio engineer would jump at moving from mixing music, to mixing movie soundtracks... and folie work has to be the most desired work of all because it just seems like so much fun. It seems like for the past 15 years there has been a shift in the music industry, when at any given time, half the top 10 record sales are soundtracks and not albums, per se... it is lucritive. More work to do means more money for engineers... and God bless them, they deserve it.
I thought it was a great idea, instead of having a giant iPhoto library taking up space on the hard drive, keep all your images on the iPod.... but it doesn't store the images in the original, highest resolution... so it becomes not even a good back up device
and the distance between your stereos should have nothing to do with what you think it does...
the distence between placement of stereo speakers is PURELY dependant upon HOW LOUD you play the audio through them, the louder, the further apart, otherwise, you are destroying the stereo field, it is phasing into crap...
There is no NEED for surround... it is a total commercial construct like Valentine's Day... people say they SWEAR it sounds better, but you have to consider the source... these people are idiots, and 9 times out of 10, their system isn't set up right, just like this guy's system...
1) There is no way to tell which direction sound is coming from. All the tests with the fake speakers, and people SWEAR there is sound coming out of them... its psycho-acoustics, just no way to tell (unless you are tripping on acid, because thats the only way to SEE SOUND)
2) 3-D audio, in 360, only requires 2 speakers... any good engineer can make it sound like the audio is coming from right behind you, or above you or whatever
Except... forget the substance, MTV has style... I don't like it, but it is usually slick...
Omni had style... it was wonderful to look at... gorgeous, luxurious...
but, forget the lack of substance, Wired's broken serial-killer letter production gives me a freaking headache...
WANTED: Digital Librarian Archive Asst., Digital Salvage Director, UNIX Admin., eMail Archiver, Information Architect, Mathemetician, Psychological Councilor...
All positions require Computer Science Bachelor's and Master's degree and 18 years experience or 2 year Mathematics degree and 10 years experience, except for the Councilor, which requires 6 months Hooters waiting experience and a PRN
send resume and salary reqs. to address_empty at potmail.c
one more thing...
You are a UNIX admin... be proud of that... it will be much easier for you to learn Windows than it is for a Windows admin to learn UNIX...
have no fear... basically, if you even know a little Windows, you can fake it... you know how to find information on what you need to do, so just say you CAN do the job, that you are certified... I know at least 3 Windows admins that basically lied about their certs, and ended up getting them AFTER landing the job... what makes windows hard is the paradigm, but once you get it, EVERYTHING becomes easy... some things are a little esoteric, well, not esoteric so much (like some arcane UNIX things) but... stupid. Some things in windows are really fscking stupid... but once you get over the rage at the idiocy, you'll be fine.
I'm pretty much against unions, but maybe sys admins should have one...
What I've noticed in the past 5 years or so is that the average starting salary for a UNIX admins (and other highly skilled computer jobs) has dropped considerably... its disturbing. It is a HIGHLY skilled job that the wigs in large or small corporations just don't understand. It's not as if the market is flooded with employable sys admins, either.
I've never had a problem with NT... I think it is a fine server... but... (I don't know) is it still even being supported? Can you even buy NT anymore? Does it run on new servers? As far as what you said about the split between Windows and UNIX admins, that is my experience, too, only... if you have UNIX servers, why bother with windows? The windows admins are there for the user boxes at the desks... and most UNIX admins I know don't like to travel far from their desks and espescially not to interact with the (yuk!) user... if the UNIX admin is doing his job well, he never has to interface with the user. I look at Windows admins like I look at sales people... they know how to get along with people... they are more socially adept... and good for them, because I don't want to do that.
There was an ad in the paper for a job that I laughed at... it was for a Windows administrator, and they REQUIRED a Computer Science bachelors degree, and it started at 21K. WTF!! CS grads used to be able to start out doing, well, computer science at 65K fresh out of school... and now they have to shlub along as a windows admin for peanuts? This trend in the economy of devaluing high tech jobs is getting ridiculous... I don't care how many Indians can dance on the head of a pin for half as much, that work isn't easy, and it isn't cheap to get that education... my God, holding a figgin' stop/slow sign at a road work site pays better!
so, personally speaking, I think UNIX admins should bond together to prevent such a bullying from employers and industry, get their old starting salaries back (say, those of 5-8 years ago), and stop this UNIX/Windows admin BS. Windows admins would benefit too...
What would be wrong with going ahead with the original plan of 9 movies? I heard that the last three (unmade) films were wrapped up into Jedi (VI), but I can't believe that crap...
What happens next? Man... they could fit 3 films between III and IV if they wanted to... but they have to crap it up with TV bs...
Its a sad truth that the best special effects on TV ever were used in Star Trek series...
Personally, I liked I, II & III, a few problems, but nothing that will stop me from watching them 17 times each... but if they put it on tv, its going to get really cheasy, with crappy special effects, and crappy acting... and just forget about the writing getting any better...
Gosh! What a screw up! I'm glad I pirated his stupid movies!
Doesn't anybody understand? There are REAL feelings involved here... its not just all chips and market and money.... Steve REALLY cares about his constituents! He made this decision... and didn't really know if it was the right one... but IBM was IGNORING him! Intel, at least, knew that he was feeling bad, and listened to him!!
Sort of... this is definatly a tactic to dowplay the Intel switch. They are playing the news cycle game. I'll bet that's why they didn't mention new hardware yesterday (except for the developer platform, of which they showed no pictures of and Steve's P4 Mac was hidde, even after he revealed the secret), but everyone is expecting new powerbooks soon. I predict no less than two more news releases this week, not counting the powerbook, which may wait until next Monday, which will be played down slightly (playing it cool), in the hopes that the news itself forgets about the intel switch and stop reporting on it.
yes... all this...
but I think they should have added compiler tests for Java as well...
I'm curious to see how Linux on the G5 compiling Java would be compared to Tiger or just Darwin doing the same.
Also, I think it is obligatory to throw in a few machines running at the same clock speed as the G5... just to see...
But why can't benchmarkers get it right? Control control control! If only they could eliminate the variables, and do the right tests, then we could really see what we are looking at!! (uh... you know what I mean)
Slashdot Mirror
I just had a Toshiba laptop drive die... just after its 1 year warranty was up... but its prob for the best, as it is replaced with a 5year warrantied Seagate (got some other Seagates, too, for the servers...) ... but now I'm wondering... Ought I to do some EXTRA backing up almost 5 years from now?
I'm sure it already runs NetBSD
Aren't these Mac's using a 32-bit Intel proc? Does Apple really intend to replace a 64-bit machine with a 32-bit one?
Aren't there G4's that outpace G5's at the same clock speed? What does this comparison really say? Will it be faster at even the Altivec/dual proc enhanced apps (like filters filters for photoshop, rendering video, etc...)
Napster WAS good for the music industry. The MPAA is making a similar mistake the music industry made, but not quite. Bootlegs SELL RECORDS. mp3s don't include the art work, the physical thing the consumer can hold and cherish (like the LP back in the day). And back then, at least, IMHO mp3s were not the quality of 16-bit CDs. IMO mp3s sound like a plate of @ss.
I really think the number of people who dled a mp3 back then, liked the artist and went out and bought the CD more than made up for the number that just horded as many mp3s as possible (more than they'd ever be able to actually listen to) just because of the excitement of doing something wrong. I considered mp3s to be about broadcast quality, not "digital quality," so why didn't the record industry go after radio stations when people used to make mix cassettes off radio back in the '80s? Because its absurd. Record sales slowed down slightly after the Napster fiasco... they lost sales... and the proof is the number of legal and free mp3's of singles available on the web... they are trying to get that "try before you buy" demographic back.
For the movie industry, its a little different. Their motivation is the principle (not the greed, as in the case of the record industry) They spend a lot of money trying to prevent piracy, and it doesn't work. Its wasted money (remember that MIT interview with the head of the MPAA, and the interviewer had written a little DVD decoder... and the MPAA just couldn't believe how easy it was to twart the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent trying to prevent such things). The problem is, their piracy prevention efforts only serve to stiffle the fair use rights of those that don't pirate in the first place.
for software, I think it is quite different. I have a friend who is a pirate (who just won't listen to reason). His crazy justification is that he can't afford the software, so he wouldn't be buying it anyway, so they are not loosing revenue. But I thought of another good point (at least in the case of professional applications, not games): if someone who can't afford pro software gets it and learns it and uses it, they might get a job somewhere that has bought the software. OR the pirate might recommend this software to a co. they work at and the developers get their money back in this form.
Personally, I have a lot of respect for developers. They are smart people, usually not complete @ssholes, and the work they do is not easy... and every year their salaries go down because of foreign labor. I miss the days when a 14 year old game developer could buy a Porche with cash... even though he couldn't drive, I think was still deserving of that sort of fast income.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5540839/
I don't remember any protests, but it upset me some...
yes... but this doesn't mean that full resolution pics can be displayed
but the quote was
"No one will ever need any more than 64K" -B.Gates
point is, you don't know what you are hearing... you can say its reflections, and I'm not saying their not there...
so go ahead, sound proof a room, cover it with Sonex, and put up a bunch of dummy speakers and you will get the same effect from people who don't know which speakers are dummies and which are real
YOU CAN'T SEE SOUND. YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT COMES FROM. IT ONLY SOUNDS DIRECTIONAL BECAUSE YOU EXPECT SOUND TO BE COMING FROM THAT WHICH YOU KNOW TO BE THE SOURCE (SORRY DAMN KEY CAPS STUCK AGAIN)
no no no... 2 ears, 2 speakers... 3D sound only requires 2 speakers... but we have only 2 ears thus as few as 2 channels ... [is]...sufficient.
This is just silly... you can't triangulate with audio because we only have 2 ears, and that is all that is needed for the perception of 3D audio
I am upset that there aren't more audio nerds and less people who have read Wittgenstein that which you do not know about, you cannot speak about
its like... can you aim a speaker at a prism, and slice the audio into its constituent frequencies? no. Audio is vibration in air... perceived by the ears. But so much depends on the PERCEPTION.
This is a common misconception... your brain paints an aural picture alright, but still, whether it is accurate or not is completely unverifiable. You only THINK that you know where sound is coming from... unless you actually know (because you set the system up) your brain will FOOL you into thinking that you know. see Direction and Distance
Then explain all the psycho-acoustic experiments?
You can try this yourself at home... Hook up your stereo speakers in the front of the room... then, set up a bunch of other "dummy" speakers... turn the music up real loud (actually coming through the stereo speakers only) and use something that is mixed well for stereo... any of the lofi bands from the early '90's that went hifi in the late '90's will do (my personal current mix favorite, Pretty Together by Sloan... I can't figure out how they mixed that so well... but Pink Floyd's The Wall, Momentary Lapse of reason will do, or Eagle's Hotel California) and sit back and gleefully watch your friends as they try to figure out where the sound is coming from! Better yet HIDE your stereo speakers behind some drapped cloth... then it gets really interesting.
Music that is mixed for stereo creates a stereo field... its so weird, it can seem louder in certain areas of the field, and it has nothing to do with proximity to the audio source... I think it has to do with the way the ear perceives different frequencies as louder or softer, even though these frequencies are the same sound pressure (we hear 4K louder, all things being equal)... or it could have to do with the brain (most of what we understand about the human brain comes from bicycle accidents... head trama... we have a long way to go)
anyway, apologies about the "troll"... honestly, I wasn't trolling... I just get so annoyed at these so called "audiophiles" that are more in love with technology than they are with good audio... but I stick by my guns... anything more than stereo is a dickpull, extra speakers are superfluous
there are a lot of audio engineers out there that swear by Surround... but they have good economic reason to do so. Any audio engineer would jump at moving from mixing music, to mixing movie soundtracks... and folie work has to be the most desired work of all because it just seems like so much fun. It seems like for the past 15 years there has been a shift in the music industry, when at any given time, half the top 10 record sales are soundtracks and not albums, per se... it is lucritive. More work to do means more money for engineers... and God bless them, they deserve it.
I thought it was a great idea, instead of having a giant iPhoto library taking up space on the hard drive, keep all your images on the iPod.... but it doesn't store the images in the original, highest resolution... so it becomes not even a good back up device
that being said, I wish I had one
and the distance between your stereos should have nothing to do with what you think it does...
the distence between placement of stereo speakers is PURELY dependant upon HOW LOUD you play the audio through them, the louder, the further apart, otherwise, you are destroying the stereo field, it is phasing into crap...
There is no NEED for surround... it is a total commercial construct like Valentine's Day... people say they SWEAR it sounds better, but you have to consider the source... these people are idiots, and 9 times out of 10, their system isn't set up right, just like this guy's system...
1) There is no way to tell which direction sound is coming from. All the tests with the fake speakers, and people SWEAR there is sound coming out of them... its psycho-acoustics, just no way to tell (unless you are tripping on acid, because thats the only way to SEE SOUND)
2) 3-D audio, in 360, only requires 2 speakers... any good engineer can make it sound like the audio is coming from right behind you, or above you or whatever
All that is needed for 3 dimensional sound is 2 speakers...
A good audio engineer can produce mixes with 2 speakers that can make it sound like audio is coming from anywhere around you...
even 5.1 is superfluous...
Except... forget the substance, MTV has style... I don't like it, but it is usually slick... Omni had style... it was wonderful to look at... gorgeous, luxurious... but, forget the lack of substance, Wired's broken serial-killer letter production gives me a freaking headache...
WANTED: Digital Librarian Archive Asst., Digital Salvage Director, UNIX Admin., eMail Archiver, Information Architect, Mathemetician, Psychological Councilor...
All positions require Computer Science Bachelor's and Master's degree and 18 years experience or 2 year Mathematics degree and 10 years experience, except for the Councilor, which requires 6 months Hooters waiting experience and a PRN
send resume and salary reqs. to address_empty at potmail.c
one more thing... You are a UNIX admin... be proud of that... it will be much easier for you to learn Windows than it is for a Windows admin to learn UNIX... have no fear... basically, if you even know a little Windows, you can fake it... you know how to find information on what you need to do, so just say you CAN do the job, that you are certified... I know at least 3 Windows admins that basically lied about their certs, and ended up getting them AFTER landing the job... what makes windows hard is the paradigm, but once you get it, EVERYTHING becomes easy... some things are a little esoteric, well, not esoteric so much (like some arcane UNIX things) but... stupid. Some things in windows are really fscking stupid... but once you get over the rage at the idiocy, you'll be fine.
I'm pretty much against unions, but maybe sys admins should have one...
What I've noticed in the past 5 years or so is that the average starting salary for a UNIX admins (and other highly skilled computer jobs) has dropped considerably... its disturbing. It is a HIGHLY skilled job that the wigs in large or small corporations just don't understand. It's not as if the market is flooded with employable sys admins, either.
I've never had a problem with NT... I think it is a fine server... but... (I don't know) is it still even being supported? Can you even buy NT anymore? Does it run on new servers? As far as what you said about the split between Windows and UNIX admins, that is my experience, too, only... if you have UNIX servers, why bother with windows? The windows admins are there for the user boxes at the desks... and most UNIX admins I know don't like to travel far from their desks and espescially not to interact with the (yuk!) user... if the UNIX admin is doing his job well, he never has to interface with the user. I look at Windows admins like I look at sales people... they know how to get along with people... they are more socially adept... and good for them, because I don't want to do that.
There was an ad in the paper for a job that I laughed at... it was for a Windows administrator, and they REQUIRED a Computer Science bachelors degree, and it started at 21K. WTF!! CS grads used to be able to start out doing, well, computer science at 65K fresh out of school... and now they have to shlub along as a windows admin for peanuts? This trend in the economy of devaluing high tech jobs is getting ridiculous... I don't care how many Indians can dance on the head of a pin for half as much, that work isn't easy, and it isn't cheap to get that education... my God, holding a figgin' stop/slow sign at a road work site pays better!
so, personally speaking, I think UNIX admins should bond together to prevent such a bullying from employers and industry, get their old starting salaries back (say, those of 5-8 years ago), and stop this UNIX/Windows admin BS. Windows admins would benefit too...
What would be wrong with going ahead with the original plan of 9 movies? I heard that the last three (unmade) films were wrapped up into Jedi (VI), but I can't believe that crap...
What happens next? Man... they could fit 3 films between III and IV if they wanted to... but they have to crap it up with TV bs...
Its a sad truth that the best special effects on TV ever were used in Star Trek series...
Personally, I liked I, II & III, a few problems, but nothing that will stop me from watching them 17 times each... but if they put it on tv, its going to get really cheasy, with crappy special effects, and crappy acting... and just forget about the writing getting any better...
Gosh! What a screw up! I'm glad I pirated his stupid movies!
Doesn't anybody understand? There are REAL feelings involved here... its not just all chips and market and money.... Steve REALLY cares about his constituents! He made this decision... and didn't really know if it was the right one... but IBM was IGNORING him! Intel, at least, knew that he was feeling bad, and listened to him!!
Sort of... this is definatly a tactic to dowplay the Intel switch. They are playing the news cycle game. I'll bet that's why they didn't mention new hardware yesterday (except for the developer platform, of which they showed no pictures of and Steve's P4 Mac was hidde, even after he revealed the secret), but everyone is expecting new powerbooks soon. I predict no less than two more news releases this week, not counting the powerbook, which may wait until next Monday, which will be played down slightly (playing it cool), in the hopes that the news itself forgets about the intel switch and stop reporting on it.
yes... all this... but I think they should have added compiler tests for Java as well... I'm curious to see how Linux on the G5 compiling Java would be compared to Tiger or just Darwin doing the same. Also, I think it is obligatory to throw in a few machines running at the same clock speed as the G5... just to see... But why can't benchmarkers get it right? Control control control! If only they could eliminate the variables, and do the right tests, then we could really see what we are looking at!! (uh... you know what I mean)
I'd like an iPod that runs for a year on a charge... then just fill 'er up, and go for another... (I understand so little...)